


nothing new under the sun

by maleyka



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maleyka/pseuds/maleyka
Summary: He holds on to hurtful memories for as long as they are potent, probes them occasionally like pushing on a bruise. Joe calls it perverted with a half-delighted raise of his eyebrows, but it isn't like that. Nicky just likes to reassure himself that he can still feel all of it.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 29
Kudos: 339





	nothing new under the sun

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about these characters and Nicky (probably) has a lot of feelings about time and history and memory. This story technically features a depiction of a major character death, but, you know, [gestures at canon]. Many thanks to exsequar for the spontaneous beta. ♥

He remembers his first death only in flashes: the impact of his shoulder against Yusuf's chest as his sword slides home; a burst of humid breath on his cheek, smelling stale and metallic; the bite of a dagger opening his thigh down to the bone.

They fall together, first to their knees, then down on the ground in a graceless sprawl of tangled limbs. Yusuf's chest jerks under Nicolò's cheek with the struggle to draw breath, lifting and lowering his head like a boat on the tide. One more swell, then nothing. Nicolò's vision dims. The last image he takes with him is a brown hand flung outward on the sand, open as if beckoning. 

***

Nicky is not Nicolò, but he remembers him, fondly for the most part. So much of his original life has worn away over the centuries. When he thinks of his mother, she's an amalgamation of sense memories more than a picture in his mind: her smell when he pressed his nose against her neck and the particular joyful cadence of her laugh. The moment he first realized that he could no longer describe her face with any accuracy, the burst of grief was so violent that it buckled his knees in the middle of the street. 

Even that memory has faded now, the pain no longer acute. Joe talks about it sometimes as just another anecdote, the time he heroically risked life and limb to drag Nicky out of the way of an oncoming horse and carriage before he could not-die in front of a hundred witnesses, but Joe likes to do that, turn bitter to sweet in the retelling. He sheds bad history as quickly as he can. 

Nicky does his best not to. He holds on to hurtful memories for as long as they are potent, probes them occasionally like pushing on a bruise. Joe calls it perverted with a half-delighted raise of his eyebrows, but it isn't like that. Nicky just likes to reassure himself that he can still feel all of it. That's his fear about immortality: the idea of growing numb to good and bad, soul worn as smooth and indifferent as a pebble by the passage of time. That would be a true death, more than whatever moment his body's clock runs out for good. 

***

Progress is not linear. Every few generations, humanity seems to double back into darkness and has to fight its way forward again. They all react to it in different ways - Booker with resignation, Andy with anger, Joe with a single-minded drive to action. Nicky wonders where Nile will be in a century or two. He tries to view the cycle with equanimity, silently recites Ecclesiastes to himself: _What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun_. He used to find it a cynical sentiment, but the longer he is alive, the more he realizes that's not true. Yes, there's weariness in it, but also reassurance. People still hate and destroy and hurt each other in petty ways, but they also still love, still create, still strive for better. Every generation builds on what came before, and when their achievements are torn down, the next one builds again. 

***

They're in Modena, in the shadow of a cathedral that was begun the year Nicolò died and is now the most ancient building in the city. Locals on bicycles keep rattling by across the cobbles. The breeze is cool on Nicky's neck and Joe's hand is warm on his knee. 

He watches as Nile takes a picture for a group of tourists, directing them into position with lots of gesturing and laughter. Andy is watching too, even though she's trying to hide it behind her sunglasses.

"This place is nuts," Nile says as she drops back onto her rickety bistro chair. "Like, those lion statues by the door are actually -"

"Roman," Andy says. "We read the plaque, too."

Nile gives her a look over the rim of her espresso cup. "Still not as old as you, huh."

"Nothing in this word is as old as Andy, except for dirt and cave paintings." Joe catches the sugar packet Andy throws at him with a cackle. 

It's good to be together, the four of them, but there's a hole at their center they all step carefully around. Ninety-nine years and nine months more. Nicky tells himself that it's nothing, in the grand scheme of things. It took more than twice as long for this cathedral to be built, five generations of craftsmen who never saw their work completed. They can take Booker back here and the lions will not have altered. 

Two of the tourists - a couple - have a baby with them, a little girl in polka dot leggings. She's stumbling her way across the piazza with her father close behind and holding both of her chubby hands in his. With sudden clarity, Nicky remembers his own father lifting him on top of a horse for the first time. He can't recall what the horse looked like, or even how old he was, but his father's voice is very clear in his mind, full of pride: _Molto bene, Nicolò!_

He's glancing down to check the time when a cheer makes him look back. The little girl is walking on her own, three unsteady steps before she slumps against her mother's legs. The woman is beaming as she picks her up, lifts her high over her head and jiggles her until the baby hiccups with laughter.

Nicky feels Joe leaning close even before he speaks, warm breath ticklish on the edge of his jaw. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Nicky says. He picks up Joe's hand and kisses it before amending, "Ecclesiastes."

The corners of Joe's eyes crinkle in a teasing smile. "You've been at the cathedral too long. Come on, Nile wants to eat _traditional_ pizza."

"Oh, don't get him started." Andy gathers her jacket from the back of her chair as she rises. "You know, they didn't have pizza in Nicky's day. Didn't even have tomatoes."

Joe nods. "Flatbreads with onion and pig's lard, the true Italian heritage."

Nicky mildly flips him the bird. "It's fine," he tells Nile over Joe's laughter. "We can have modern pizza."

There may be nothing new under the sun, but every now and then, humanity comes up with a new winning combination. 

***

Nicky doesn't remember much about fighting Yusuf but there are other recollections of his journey to the Holy Land. Some of them still make him shiver pleasurably after all this time - the setting sun on his face in the Mount of Olives, or entering the incense-fragrant cool of the Holy Sepulchre. The memory of his death and rebirth makes him shiver in a different way. For all that it brought him the love of his life, there's also shame in it, about the vicious satisfaction he felt striking down an enemy of Christ. Joe would tell him to let it go - _What are we going to do,_ he said to Nicky once, _weep over our foolishness for a thousand years?_ \- but Nicky doesn't. He shields that little ember at his core and relishes the way it burns him. He can't quite joke about it the way that Joe can, turn it into a funny story to tell new friends, but that's all right. If anything, the memory is more precious to him for the way it holds both the bitter and the sweet.


End file.
